Harvest

November 10, 2017

The grackles plummet down to pierce the lawn

For seeds and fat brown live oak acorns andIgnore the orange plastic watering cansMy daughters drop in the cold grass, my daughtersSaying, Goodnight grass, as if the blades they’d wateredBy hand were their daughters, as if the grassWere a feeling they’d been feeling, greenlyReckoning the evening, the ball moss falling from the trees,The sun circling the crouched shade of the weepingPersimmon tree as mildly as the knife roundsThe persimmon I bring inside so I can sayOf the pierced skin, Look, this is the color weWant sunset to be, the color of the plasticWatering cans shocking the dark that fallsOver the suggestions of footprints in the grass,The black grackles, and the acorns batteringOur metal roof while I feed my ravenous daughtersA soft dinner that they clutch with grubby hands and gnaw.

Cecily Parks is the author of the poetry collections Field Folly Snow and O’Nights.